I woke up ruminating over the DSS raid of some judges’ homes across the country, on suspicion of sharp practices and public reaction to the development. I am deeply worried. I’m worried for several reasons. One, why are we the way we are in this country? One moment, we shout at rooftops: crucify him; the next moment, we shout hosanna.
For years now, especially since the Arthur Nzeribe’s ‘procurement’ of the bizarre court injunction on June 12 in the early 90s till the present time, several people had expressed great concern and worry on the moral decline in the judiciary. Many are of the firm, valid and reasonable view that whatever ills of society there are, can be redressed so long as we have an upright, impartial and incorruptible bench.
But to date, I doubt if that is not a forlorn hope. I say so, because every attempt to ensure sanity in that Third Estate of the Realm, in this country had always been waylaid by subterfuge of ethnicity, religion and political manoeuvring aided by filthy lucre.
I insist that many Nigerians are uncomfortable with most of the pronouncements from the bench whether on land matters or, in the most important of all, political matters. But two references from those who should know will suffice for the purpose of my intervention here. If they were comments by brilliant and sound citizens like Adamu Ciroma, Mamman Daura, Lateef Jakande, Patrick Dele Cole and Odia Ofeimun, lawyers will be quick to dismiss them as people “not learned in the law”. But can anyone, truly learned, controvert these views uttered by a redoubtable Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Okwudili Oputa of blessed memory and a past Chief Justice of the Federation, highly regarded Justice Muhammadu Lawal Uwais on the worrisome decay in the judiciary.
First, Justice Oputa: “ No one should go to the bench to amass wealth, for money corrupts and pollutes, not only the channels of justice but also the very stream itself. It is a calamity to have a corrupt judge. When justice is bought and sold, there’s no more hope for society”.
Second, read and digest this again from a one-time Chief Justice Muhammadu Uwais: “A corrupt judge is more harmful to the society than a man who runs amok with a dagger in a crowded street. The latter can be restrained physically, but a corrupt judge deliberately destroys the moral foundation of society and causes incalculable distress to individuals through abusing his office while still being referred to as honourable”.
These two jurists are insiders who certainly know more than any of us out here. And if the statements credited to them, which had not been controverted by them, are anything to go by, they confirm without any equivocation that the rot in the judiciary is skin-deep. It therefore calls for surgical operation because the rot is akin to a festering sore on the leg that can develop into gangrene and ultimately lead to amputation of that leg.
Anyone who followed the James Ibori case from Nigeria to how it ended up in the UK cannot but agree that with the judiciary, we are, in the language of the Americans, in “real, deep shit” in this country.
A peep into the prosecution departments of the various ministries of justice in this country can be so telling and unedifying; where it is commonplace to compromise justice with the connivance of the executive. Bogus bails are said to be “manufactured” from these departments by unscrupulous law officers who secure bails from prison custody for known and confirmed criminals for huge sums of money in active but unholy collaboration with some prison officers. These unscrupulous law officers must have been emboldened to indulge in these perfidious acts because (1) they had been intimidated by some members of the executive branch to re-write legal submissions that could get their criminal hirelings off the hook at different times and (2) because some of them who work in the courts are privy to how their principals, magistrates and judges, had manipulated justice for pecuniary benefits, had also devised their own methods of making money out of those being held in prison custody awaiting trial by forging unsuspecting judges signatures to secure bails for alleged murderers through motion bails.
If people who previously had not had nice words to say on the conduct of some of our judicial officers, are now uncomfortable with the Buhari administration’s move to take the war on corruption to the bench, perhaps the method adopted can be fine-tuned in conformity with civilised norm, instead of a wholesale condemnation of the effort to bring confirmed corrupt judges and other judicial officers to account. To be sure, I am for all erring members of the bench to be ruthlessly dealt with; after all, what is bad has no other name than bad!
When a few corrupt ones are stripped of their ill-gotten wealth, without recourse to capital punishment as some are advocating, they will be made to live with the odium of that malfeasance for the rest of their lives. It is the ONLY way to redeem this country so that the young ones will not be misled into believing that the surest way to wealth and fame is through using the advantage of public office to plunder the nation and bleed it to death.
The problem I have with law is the easy recourse to technicalities to provide escape route for criminals. When an Omolaja Ogboluaje is caught beheading a fellow human being and in the process of being arraigned in court, the suspect’s first name is misspelt as Adelaja, he gets discharged and acquitted on that score, to the chagrin of those who witnessed the act of beheading and who testified in open court to that effect, in addition to the written admission of the suspect himself. Can anyone who is accessory to that fact be blamed if they insinuate that some palms had been greased in the process?
There is this erroneous and unfair charge that all the ills of our society are caused by politicians. Wherever the issue was raised, I had always stood up vehemently against the charge. I have this view because I am a politician and I know that not all politicians are that bad to be adorned with this negative toga. I also know, as one who had had the privilege of heading a government, even if at the local level, that many infractions committed in government at the local, state and federal tiers, had the ingenious but invisible signatures of civil servants, who normally open politicians eyes to where they could deal with the public till, mindlessly. They are adept at it that when the consequences of such plunder of the public treasury come on the politicians, in khaki or babanriga, the civil servants who are the real masterminds of such plunder, always got away unscathed.
This then leads me to the recommendation to the Buhari administration that the assault on the political class should spread across board to cover the civil service, the academic, the disciplined forces and the judiciary. But a caveat: the dragnet should be widespread and not selective, if the growing opinion of the citizenry that the war against corruption is targeted at perceived foes of the current administration, is not to take firm root. Some believe, because of its seeming selectiveness, that the war against corruption is another means of muzzling the opposition.
Some don’t agree with this view but the Buhari administration must be transparent to let even those wearing blinkers know that it is sincere and impartial.
All public and civil servants at all levels of government in the last 10 years at least, should have their bank accounts and assets investigated to know how rotten morality had gotten in our land; and membership of the ruling party should not provide a safety net for all those who had held offices in the public and civil services of this country.
Buhari has the moral standing to carry out this task but he must brace up to stiff opposition from vested interests, as is currently being witnessed. If he lives true to his words at his presidential inauguration that he belongs to no one but he’s for everyone, his national support base for this crusade will widen and his name will be etched in gold for ever. But if allows himself to be swayed by petty political, ethnic, religious or other primordial considerations, all his strivings in life, will come to nought. And we will be back to square one!
- Osiyemi, is a public affairs analyst.
